Case Name: People of the State of California v. Kaseen Jackson and Jant Price

Case Description: This case was a drive-by murder committed by the defendants, members of the Four-Trey Gangster Crips upon the victim, a member of the rival Five-Trey Avalon Crips.   The motive was to retaliate for the murder of a Four-Trey gang member earlier that same night after what was supposed to be a gang truce meeting. Defendant Price was seen and heard to be extremely angry while at the scene of the murder of his fellow gang member, and blamed the Avalons.

He and defendant Jackson embarked on a mission to exact revenge. Price drove into Avalon territory, and when they spotted the victim in an alley, Jackson shot at him. The injured victim fell in the alley, after which Jackson got out of Price's car and executed him on the ground. Jackson also fired shots at two other men in the area.

Also charged in the same case was a separate attempted murder committed by defendant Jackson on another victim three weeks later. That crime was motivated by the fact that the victim was a witness on yet another recent murder committed three days prior by another Four-Trey.

The trial included the playing of a large number of audiotapes of defendant Jackson's phone calls from the jail, which had been intercepted via an authorized wiretap. In those calls, Jackson spoke of his desire to have witnesses intimidated, injured, or killed.

It is common in gang cases for witnesses to recant earlier statements given to police. But this case, perhaps more than any other in Mr. Rubinson's career, was characterized by one hardened gang member after the next displaying an inordinate amount of hostility toward the police, the judicial process, and me. Those that took the stand did so extremely reluctantly, and then either denied making statements to the police at all or bitterly and obscenely impugned the police's integrity and their methods of obtaining those statements. Several of the witnesses refused to testify at all, resulting in their being held in contempt of court.   While in the hallway with the court in recess, a number of the witnesses issued veiled threats to Mr. Rubinson's safety.

In many ways, it was the classic gang murder case, considering the manner in which the crime was committed, the motive, the difficulty in ascertaining the identities of witnesses and then obtaining information from them, the presence of witness intimidation, and the difficulty of presenting the evidence in court due to the absolute lack of cooperation of almost every key witness.